Why no love for Arizona courses?

Planning a golf trip to Scottsdale and noticed that Arizona courses never seem to get any love on National lists ie Golf Digest top 100. Is there any particular reason? Some of the courses look phenomenal. Is it because of the landscape or types of courses? Curious to hear from some locals or others in the know. Thanks

There are multiple reasons for this but we it mostly starts and ends with tradition. There's also a bit of penal style that hurts in rankings. Also, much like the rest of the country all of the best AZ courses are private. There are several ranked however:

Golf Digest Top 100 and Next 100

The Estancia Club 74

Forest Highlands 114

Stone Canyon 155

Desert Forest 197

Golfweek Top 100 Modern

Estancia 31

Desert Forest 44

The Rim 66

Forest Highlands 85

I'll never understand how Estancia is commonly the top ranked course in the state other than the fact that is beautiful. It is solid but there are at least 20 courses here I'd personally put ahead of it. I live less than 5 miles from the clubhouse and have played it many (>50) times so I do speak from experience. Amazing clubhouse as well. That's kinda outside your question though...

Here's the thing though, our public courses will not be the best in the world but I'd challenge someone to find more "very good" courses that anyone can play within a metro area than we have. There may be zero "excellent" ones due to the nature of the terrain but that's not going to change.

Thanks for the feedback. Makes sense

Planning a golf trip to Scottsdale and noticed that Arizona courses never seem to get any love on National lists ie Golf Digest top 100. Is there any particular reason? Some of the courses look phenomenal. Is it because of the landscape or types of courses? Curious to hear from some locals or others in the know. Thanks

My take from a public course standpoint

Quite frankly there is only 2 maybe 3 public designs here that actually stick out in my mind as Top 100 worthy, and IIRC all of them have been in the top 100 at one point or another.

Saguaro

Southern Dunes

Pinnacle

The reality is most of AZ's public tracks were developed and designed during a very bad era for course design where focus was on real estate developments 1st and course routing 2nd. At the end of the day people really dont come to AZ for the architecture they come because it is a winter getaway and quite frankly the desert is beautiful and very different from most golf landscapes. Theres a lot of pretty bad golf design with world class scenery out here though...........

Interesting topic. Great responses by opb & az2au.

I’d add that we have 0 golden age courses designed by Ross, tilly, Raynor, Flynn... The only good “classic”

courses that come to mind are Papago, Phx cc, wigwam Gold & desert Forest. I’m pretty sure Papago if not more of the courses that I mentioned were built post 1960 which is golfweek’s line between modern & classic courses.

Also as opb mentioned a lot of the courses built here were built in the last 25 years. Bad architecture (Gold canyon dinosaur), too much earth moving (kierland) & lots of poorly routed residential courses (wildfire) imho.

Interesting question. I ageee that it’s the lack of tradition. The golf experience here is as good as anywhere in the country (if not better), but it’s not steeped in history the way it is at many other clubs back east, and I do think that clouds the judgement of many when it comes to a “best of” type ranking.

Seems to me, from a distance, that the rota of solid golf courses is very very good in AZ when compared to many places around the world. Where else could you find say six better public access courses within an easy drive than WKP Saguaro, TN Pinnacle, Grayhawk Raptor, Southern Dunes, Quintero and Wickenberg. That is a week of great golf, even leaving out the really good privates like DF, FH and co. Maybe the desert environment is a little restrictive on design innovations, that's all I can say.

Seems to me, from a distance, that the rota of solid golf courses is very very good in AZ when compared to many places around the world. Where else could you find say six better public access courses within an easy drive than WKP Saguaro, TN Pinnacle, Grayhawk Raptor, Southern Dunes, Quintero and Wickenberg. That is a week of great golf, even leaving out the really good privates like DF, FH and co. Maybe the desert environment is a little restrictive on design innovations, that's all I can say.

I love Phoenix/Scottsdale and that is why I choose to live here. However:

Monterey: Pebble, Spyglass, Pasatiempo, Poppy Hills, Bayonet, Black Horse, Pacific Grove

Bandon: 4 Big courses + Preserve & sheep ranch (probably the most underrated “golf course” in the us imho)

Traverse city Michigan area: great golf at a good value, very underrated imho, short season, courses are spread out

Troon pinnacle is my favorite public course in the valley. I love we ko pa’s design but the grasses aren’t firm enough to go with the links like shots offered around the greens. Imho the designs at SD &

Wickenburg are overrated but I understand I’m in the minority here.

We defintely have a good depth of good to very good public & private courses here. I’ve lived here a bit less than 3 years, played 78 different courses and still have probably 10-15 I want to play (Phoenix C.C., ancala, capital canyon, rancho manana) and more that I’ve only played once (victory, raven, legend trail)

Desert Forest ranked as the 17th best US course built since 1959: http://www.golf.com/courses-and-travel/top-45-golf-courses-1959

Seems to me, from a distance, that the rota of solid golf courses is very very good in AZ when compared to many places around the world. Where else could you find say six better public access courses within an easy drive than WKP Saguaro, TN Pinnacle, Grayhawk Raptor, Southern Dunes, Quintero and Wickenberg. That is a week of great golf, even leaving out the really good privates like DF, FH and co. Maybe the desert environment is a little restrictive on design innovations, that's all I can say.

Off the top of my head. Public only, if I included private or international the list would be huge.

Monterey Ca/Santa Cruz.

Michigan UP

Milwaukee

Tampa and I hate Florida

Bandon

Bend

Big Island Hawaii

Drop all of the top 6 Phoenix tracks in Cleveland and its not magically becoming a golf mecca.

Seems to me, from a distance, that the rota of solid golf courses is very very good in AZ when compared to many places around the world. Where else could you find say six better public access courses within an easy drive than WKP Saguaro, TN Pinnacle, Grayhawk Raptor, Southern Dunes, Quintero and Wickenberg. That is a week of great golf, even leaving out the really good privates like DF, FH and co. Maybe the desert environment is a little restrictive on design innovations, that's all I can say.

 

Off the top of my head. Public only, if I included private or international the list would be huge.

 

Monterey Ca/Santa Cruz.

Michigan UP

Milwaukee

Tampa and I hate Florida

Bandon

Bend

Big Island Hawaii

 

Drop all of the top 6 Phoenix tracks in Cleveland and its not magically becoming a golf mecca.

Hey we clevelanders still have lebron for a few more weeks lol

Wheres TJ (Tom) at these days... He usually would be able to have a breakdown by design of each course in the valley and why the design was implemented...

OK Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Pasatiempo, Spanish Bay etc but only for big bucks. Bandon is undoubtedly brilliant but really only 4 standard courses. Dont know about the others in the US. I just think Scottsdale provides a superb choice of good quality courses for a visitor, I could name another 8 or 10 as easily as Saguaro etc. eg Cholla, Monument, TPC (2), Talking Stick (2), Boulders (2), Talon, River Verde, Papago, etc. Even Apache Stronghold has admirers - although it is well out of town.

OK Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Pasatiempo, Spanish Bay etc but only for big bucks. Bandon is undoubtedly brilliant but really only 4 standard courses. Dont know about the others in the US. I just think Scottsdale provides a superb choice of good quality courses for a visitor, I could name another 8 or 10 as easily as Saguaro etc. eg Cholla, Monument, TPC (2), Talking Stick (2), Boulders (2), Talon, River Verde, Papago, etc. Even Apache Stronghold has admirers - although it is well out of town.

Here's a funny thing I've noticed, people that live or at least spend a lot of time here tend to be both far too hard and, oddly, too easy on our local courses. Here's what I can say for sure, I know a lot of golf fanatics and virtually every single one of them loves coming to play in the Phoenix/Scottsdale metro area. I kinda asked around and most prefer it to anything else listed in this thread. I have a theory on that, i.e., we have a bunch of very good courses but also a great city for tourism and catering to people that love golf regardless of budget AND you can pretty much bet on our weather.

I don't think you'd get any disagreement from any of them that the four courses at Bandon are better or at least equal to any of our courses probably the same for Pebble but I know a ton of people hate Spyglass (I don't) and Pasatiempo seems to be suffering from neglect. Those places have problems that we don't have though, whether it is completely out of price range for some or weather concerns.

And, while I agree with many of the places that OPB listed (not Tampa or JAX (not listed) though, I've played virtually every course public and private in both and they are far behind Scottsdale's best public courses, let alone private) plus Pinehurst all of those places fall short in some category.

All of that said, I look at the list of courses you put down and I think, blah on most of them. TPC, Boulders, Talking Stick South, Quintero, etc all kinda suck in some way to me. See: Both too hard on them and too easy on them. Perhaps it is just me. :)

Yeah that is kinda the point i was loosely eluding to in my first post

Phoenix=great destination city especially in winter for northerners and it just so happens to have a lot of golf. I love Phoenix and think it is one of the best major metropolitan areas in the country, but the more I travel and play golf the more I realize the quality of golf here is overrated in comparison. I'm also pretty sure if I lived somewhere where I was winter locked like my buddy in Iowa I would probably think Phoenix is the greatest golf destination in the country

Here's what I can say for sure, I know a lot of golf fanatics and virtually every single one of them loves coming to play in the Phoenix/Scottsdale metro area. I kinda asked around and most prefer it to anything else listed in this thread. I have a theory on that, i.e., we have a bunch of very good courses but also a great city for tourism and catering to people that love golf regardless of budget AND you can pretty much bet on our weather.

I moved around a fair amount as a kid, settling in Arizona in my mid-teens, without question the time in my life when I played the most golf. I absolutely loved desert golf. Couldn't get enough of it. A couple decades of living here, that is no longer the case. But when you're not living in it every day, desert golf is dramatic. Brilliant green layered on top of brown and thorns. Miss the fairway and you're gambling with waste areas. Almost no rough. Something about that contrast really called to me.

Living here I think most of us become desensitized to that, but coming from other places I can see that being yet another reason golf here is very appealing.

33yo, grew up in the Chicago area, caddied at Chicago Golf Club, and I've now been in Phoenix for a year (a Chicagoan in Phoenix ...... shocking, I know).

my general lack of love for courses here in Phoenix is based on the feeling of artificiality (grass in a desert), and, as others have noted, how many of the courses wind through housing complexes.

I'm a rube when it comes to architecture / design knowledge, but at a high-level, I think that *golf should be played in a field*, as seen here at the western suburbs's Downers Grove Golf Club (image), the now-public original home of Chicago Golf Club. And so playing through a mountainous desert while always feel not quite right to me.

Having said that, when I'm on the course on Sunday, it'll be rainy and 50s and Chicago, and sunny and 70s here, and I'll be happy as a clam.

The lesson, as always: I'm a huge hypocrite.

Tough critics in this thread. Wow. AZ is amazing for golf. Ever live in Georgia! No thanks. Crap except for Augusta. Ever live in New Mexico? Crap except Paako. Ever live in Texas? Too damn hot and humid. AZ is heaven for golfers.

Becaus we don’t have tree lined fairways it doesn’t look appealing? Really? Nothing better than the plush, green fairways against a brown backdrop with cactus and mountains.

Everyone has their own experiences and It guides their beliefs on what a course should look like and play like. AZ brings eye candy to me and I am thankful I get to pay anywhere in this state...

I’d actually take the New Mexico golf over AZ,it’s not crap lol

An old thread resurrected, so I'll weigh in on the original question "why Arizona courses never seem to get any love on National lists ie Golf Digest top 100..."

Up until the start of the 80's golf boom, the Phoenix area was home to a few dozen courses of which only two or three were established pre-1950. Mostly 60's and 70's era, built on flat terrain and typically tree-lined with non-native species to give that midwest, traditional feel. In other words (with a couple exceptions) nothing particularly special and nothing of golden age vintage.

The golf boom at the end of the 20th century brought a huge building spurt. A few things to be noted:

Some changes to the tax code that limited business use of the country club membership drove a boom in upscale public "country club for a day" facilities focused on amenities and visual aesthetics.Desert Highlands and The Skins Game. On TV we saw a golf course carved out of the rugged desert. WOW! The visual was extraordinary. Developers sought to replicate the experience and golf expanded to the surrounding foothill areas and onto property that would not traditionally be considered "grounds for golf." With huge budgets, developers could force golf onto unsuitable sites. For a while it was en vogue to see adverts boasting how many million cubic yards of dirt had been moved to create a course. As well, it became popular to tout high rating/slope numbers as some sort of attraction. Signature holes became the buzzword. The growth of golf driven real-estate. Developers could sell houses by integrating a community golf course, and maximizing the premium-priced course-front lots led to the popular "single-wide-fairway real-estate routing." In many cases, the housing lots took the best land while the golf course got what was left over and often had to be part of the drainage plan.All good, right? So approximately 100 new courses built in a 20 year span, for the most part, conceived for the goal of selling real estate or hotel rooms with little focus on actual golf quality.

As well, there was a big learning curve for designing courses for the harsh desert foothill environment. Incorporating bold natural features and the proximity of the rugged natural desert resulted in a high visual aesthetic and lots of WOW. But at the same time, it created a playing field VERY unforgiving to even the slightest errant shot. Lots of lost or unplayable balls and by the letter of the law, not much relief for unplayable lies was forthcoming, so if one truly wanted to play by the rules, the stroke-and-distance became a familiar and brutally punitive routine. The "Desert Rule" evolved to offer "lateral hazard relief to off turf natural areas, which is not a welcomed rule bend for traditionalists.

And there can really be no forgiving the "single-wide-fairway real-estate routing," for which there are no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Summary - No classic courses, and most of the offerings were built in a 20-year period of "modern" architecture known for excess.

We are more than a bit lucky to get a couple of courses by Bill Coore that bucked the trend. And we are seeing some renovations that are promising.

Not saying there is no good quality golf in Arizona. Lots of above average courses and the climate is attractive. Just not much that would fit into that top tier of upper rankings.

Some of the private courses out here don't get enough credit though. I'm lucky in that I've played a lot of the top ranked courses and while there's simply no course here that I'd put with National Golf Links or Royal County Down there's plenty I'd stick amongst a bunch of other top ranked courses. Forget DF for a minute as I'm biased there (but I still argue it is in the top 10 of any course I've played!). Desert Highlands, Desert Mountain-Outlaw, heck even Silverleaf are all absolutely top notch designs. I'd also argue that most people would find Mirabel, Estancia, DM-Chiricahua, DM-Renegade and DM-Geronimo right up there with other top 100 courses. Troon CC, the other DM courses, Whisper Rock (both) and Scottsdale National (mineshaft) would be right there with 100-200 level courses. There's a lot of very good-excellent golf here that most people will unfortunately never get to see.

”It’s a little it’s been distorted in so many places...”

While Desert Forest may be the best course in Arizona, I note that 5 Arizona courses are in a Top 100 US Public Access list:

Troon North Pinnacle

Troon North Monument

We Ko Pa Saguaro

Ak Chin Southern Dunes

Quintero

I think Wickenberg Ranch was excellent and Grayhawk Raptor, while not first rate, would not be far away. Talking Stick was interesting too.

And TPC Stadium for the "at least you can say you played it" factor.

We did not play Pinnacle but the others were all worth playing.

So whatever your opinion of the design of these courses, there is a fair level of acceptable quality to choose from.

The main negative would be a certain sameness of the desert style courses. Seen one cactus, seen 'em all.

It may not be Bandon Dunes or Monterey but certainly a lot of fun.

Great article, thanks for linking it.

what an excellent post!

There’s what, 248 courses here? And 230 of them are essentially indistinguishable from one another.

Desert golf gets gets real old real quick.

Cool..then don't play - I'm sure you won't be missed!

You seem happy based on your two posts. The vast majority of the courses here aren't desert courses at all. There are closer to 200 closer overall. I would guess (and it is a guess) that approximately 30% are what someone would call desert courses. A bunch are nothing more than courses with some hardpan on them. For instance in your other post you reference Papago. That course isn't a desert course.

How many courses here have you actually played? Why so much anger?

One could say the same thing about parkland golf. You've seen one tree, you've seen them all. I've played plenty of boring parkland and prairie-style courses. Ultimately it gets back to design. One can design a goat track in any style.

I agree that too many courses were built with the housing development as the first priority, and the course a distant fourth or fifth on the list. Most are playable, but they just don't get the blood flowing.

Interesting post. I grew up in Phoenix from '79 - '92. I left the city as a Junior in High School. I ended up moving to SE Arizona in '96-'98 as my first assignment back in the Army. I recently moved back to that same location and have always had a soft spot in my heart for Arizona golf courses. As a kid, I didn't care how cookie-cutter the course seemed or how drastically different the holes were, I was just glad to be playing golf all year round. I have been fortunate to have lived all over the US and even lived in South Korea. Whether it was playing among the 100'+ tall fir trees of western Washington, or hills of South Korea (where one hole had a 40' boat in the pond), I still always loved Arizona golf. I have been fortunate to have played golf in Texas and most of the Southern states. While the tree lined fairways placed a premium on hitting good drives, I never got wrapped up in the smallest of details of the courses. I place my grade on a course in how well is it maintained, how many different types of shots did I need to play, was the course playable for all ranges of players, did any of par 5s take driver out of my hand (in opinion, the worst holes are these types of par 5s), and did I feel like I got a good deal.

I think Arizona has a lot of good golf courses. There are those that are surrounded by houses, and that takes away from the course in some aspects (especially if they houses are too close to the fairways). There are also some that are really good with the houses on the course (Troon North as an example).

Golf is great if the course conditions are good. It all comes down to enjoying the game and getting a good value.